


And corgi makes five

by Ever-so-reylo (Ever_So_Reylo)



Series: YPLHverse [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alpha Kylo Ren, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Cats, Corgis, Dogs, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Rey, Pets, The Pets tag is independent from the ABO tag just thought I'd clarify that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 13:39:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17899124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ever_So_Reylo/pseuds/Ever-so-reylo
Summary: It’s not about the dog, not really. It’s the name on the plate.Rey gasps. Ben almost recoils. Because there is no way that someone thought it would be a good idea to name a dog—“… Leia Corgana?” Rey’s fingers press against her lips. She is smiling. Then grinning. Then trying not to laugh.Then inevitably failing.Or: Ben and Rey adopt a corgi.





	And corgi makes five

**Author's Note:**

  * For [asongforjonsa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/asongforjonsa/gifts).



> For Kelly, who is loving and amazing and deserves all the best. A very early happy birthday 💕
> 
> Note: This story is set in the Your Pretty Little Heart universe, but you can probably just read it as a stand alone (Ben and Rey are a mated Alpha/Omega pair, I think that's all you need to know!)  
> Also: I wish I could claim credit for the name Leia Corgana, but it's totally Kelly's idea!

 

 

They only stop by to pet the kittens. That’s it. Or at least, that’s what Rey tells him, never mind that Ben points out that they already have two at home, and that she spends an inordinate amount of time petting _them_.

“Not as much as I pet _you_ ,” she murmurs, a faint smile on her lips as she stares out of the windshield.

Ben looks at her pointedly and—says nothing, because she is not incorrect.

“Other kittens need love, too.” She is not meeting his eyes, but her hand reaches out to tug at the hem of his Henley.

Ben just sighs, and pulls the car into the shelter’s parking lot.

 

…

 

It’s not about the dog, not really. It’s the name on the plate. 

Rey gasps. Ben almost recoils. Because there is no way that someone thought it would be a good idea to name a dog—

“… Leia Corgana?” Rey’s fingers press against her lips. She is smiling. Then grinning. Then trying not to laugh.

Then inevitably failing.

“Because it’s a corgi,” says the volunteer behind them, and Ben turns to look at him. He smells young. Too young. Still-hasn’t-presented young. The name tag says ‘Prath’, and he’s clearly only there to rack up some credits for his college applications. _Community service: check._

Ben frowns. 

“The name is from Leia Organa,“ Prath continues. “She is, like, a famous person. A doctor. The current United States Secretary of Health and Human Services.” He says it with a weird inflection, like the information is something he learned by heart without fully grasping it. Like he has no idea what a Secretary of Health and Human Services even is. He can’t be a day older than fifteen. “It means that she is part of the cabinet of the President and—”

“We know,” Ben and Rey say simultaneously. Rey cheerfully, Ben… less so.

“Were you looking to adopt a dog? Because Leia Corgana has been here for a while, and she has a number of health issues that require fairly expensive medications, but if you don’t mind, she would make a fantastic pet to...”

Ben tunes Prath out because it _prickles_ inside him, that pulling sensation of his mate wanting his attention. He’d had no idea, before the bite, that it would be like this. He’d had…

_No idea_.

“Ben.” She is smiling up at him. Half-pleading and all impish. She doesn’t even have to ask.

“No.”

“But, Ben—”

“No.” He shakes his head, because Rey wears _that_ expression, like words alone won’t be enough to dissuade her. “We’re not—we’re not getting a dog.”

“But… _this_ dog.” She points at the corgi, who is already staring at Rey with besotted, fascinated eyes, and—

_Get in line_ , Ben wants to yell. “What about Rian and Audrey?”

Rey shrugs. “What about them?”

“We….” He grimaces, pinching his nose. “We have two cats. We can’t just bring home a dog.”

“Oh, they’ll be fine.” She is reaching through the crate and cooing to the dog, who acts like she’s fucking _imprinting_ on Rey. It's uncomfortable, how well Ben can relate. “We’re not home a whole lot. They’ll love more company.”

“Rian tried to kill Audrey for _weeks_  when we first brought her home.”

“Pssh. She was just playing.”

“She _chewed_ through Audrey’s ear.”

“Wait, so Rian's a girl?” Prath is still here, apparently. Looking between them with a lurid smile and clearly enjoying the show.

“Yep.” Rey winks at him. “Ben here didn’t know that calicos are pretty much always ladies.”

“I see.” Prath gives him a patronizing glance, and angles himself towards Rey. It’s obvious that he knows who he really has to convince. “You could try and test it out. Bring Leia Corgana home and see how the kitties react to her.”

“Oh, really?”

“Of course.”

“The shelter would be okay with it?” Rey is smiling at Prath in a way that he does _not_ deserve. No one deserves Rey's smiles. Not even Ben, for sure, but still. 

“Oh, totally. We usually—”

“Prath, I believe we’re good for now.” Ben thinks Rey will be proud of how polite he’s trying to be. “Thank you for your help.” 

“Oh, I have nowhere else I need to—”

“Leave,” Ben orders, with just a hint of that Alpha push, and Prath’s out of the room in a fraction of a second.

Rey just looks up at him, lips pressed together to stop a smile from blooming on her face, and—

She is _everything_. Her smell is mind-bending and her laugh even better and he will line the earth with bodies, just for her. 

But a fucking _dog_. With _that_ name.

“Dogs need to be walked,” he points out evenly.

Rey steps a little closer, still trying not to smile. “Do they.”

“And we have busy schedules.” He feels like he doesn’t see her enough as it is. Then again, it will never be enough, and he’ll never make his peace with it.

“We also have a big backyard. And money to pay a dog walker.” She is so close to leaning into him.

“Rey.”

“I’m just saying. And Prath makes a good argument.”

“Prath is twelve.”

This time she has to duck her chin into her chest to hide her smile.

“Still.”

“Still, no.”

She is _definitely_ leaning into him, now.

“Please, Alpha?” she asks, a little breathy, her hand tugging at his sleeve, and—

It’s unfair. Unfair that she pleads at him, when she’s the one who holds all the power. 

Ben sighs as she nuzzles his gland, and traces the scar he put on her through the thin cotton of her shirt.

 

…

 

He wakes up when the lights begin to filter in, and the first thing he does is—

The first thing he does every morning. Which is pull Rey closer and breath her scent from whatever gland he can reach. Some days he’s lucky and she facing away from him, which means that he gets to see his mark, remember what life was like before he put it there, trace it with lips and tongue and make Rey come before she’s even fully awake. Other days it’s her neck, or her wrists, and—he has nothing to complain about. _Nothing_.

Except that today, when he blinks himself awake, her head is already next to his on the pillow, and her eyes are open in a way that suggests she’s been staring at him for a while. Rey is not a morning person, not at all, which means that—

“You’re thinking about the dog, aren’t you?” His voice is scratchy with sleep.

“Don’t call her that.” She scoots even closer to kiss him, and Ben—he can probably deal with this.

“What did I call her?”

“‘The _dog_.’”

“I—Rey.” He pulls her into himself and nuzzles her throat. “She _is_ a dog.” 

“Yes, but… don’t call her that. She has a name.”

Right. “Listen, we put in the application.” He yawns. “There is a twenty-four hour waiting period. They’ll get back to us soon. Let us know if we’re approved.”

“I know. I know.” She burrows into him and—his Omega is exquisite. Made to be fucked. “Thank you. For saying yes.”

“It’s a conditional yes.”

“Right. On the cats’ reaction.”

He licks her gland. “Don’t call them that.” Rey pokes him in the side, and—this is slipping out of the range of his control very quickly. The way she smells, and the slick he can feel on the thigh he nudged in between her legs. “And the dog is the first thing we eat when the nuclear holocaust causes the collapse of modern civilization.”

His mate giggles, and Ben’s world is almost making sense.

 

…

 

A few minutes ago he’d thought—he’d _hoped—_ that they still had time. That he could pace himself and not chase it, the pleasure—the _end_ of this. But Rey has just come without warning, a small, fluttering orgasm around his cock, all dripping slick and clenched walls and delicious pressure, and he can feel her perfect little teeth nibble softly at his gland, and the way she _smells_ in the mornings, like sex and flowers and his spend from the night before—Ben’s going to pop his knot, any second now. He is going to lock inside his mate and spend the morning there and— 

It slices through him like a knife, the beeping sound rising from the nightstand. His come is churning in his balls and he’s not even sure how he manages to lift his eyes.

“It yours,” he rasps, pulling back his head but thrusting a little harder. It’s her pager, because there’s no kitten sticker on it—just rainbow-colored owls.

Rey just arches back, resting her head on the pillow, and tightens around him. “Alpha.”

She looks—god. _God_. This is going to be over so _soon_. “Rey.”

“Please.“

Ben groans through his teeth. She is about to come again. With her slick and that faint smile and her beautiful moans. “Rey. The pager.” 

Her eyes are glossy, like she’s not quite _there_ when she says, “Alpha. Alpha, thank you.”

“Rey, do you—” _Jesus fucking Christ._ “Omega.”

The tone gets her attention. Or maybe it’s the fact that Ben is thrusting even harder, now. Completely out of it. 

“I—whatever you want, Alpha.”

He can barely push the words out—“Are you on call?”—and she doesn’t even need to answer; he can see it from the way her eyes snap open that she fucking _is_.

Ben grunts, and can barely tear himself out before his knot swells, huge and angry and pulsating just outside of her cunt. 

It’s heaven—but mostly hell.

“I am _so_ sorry,” Rey whispers. She is—coming, still coming, and so is Ben, right inside her and making a mess of it, but not quite deep _enough_  and—God, he used to do this all the time, fucking and coming and not knotting her, and it was always like this, the most exquisite pain and miserable pleasure. 

She kisses him until the second he’s done going crazy all over her, and then licks his gland affectionately and jumps right out of the bed. “Crap.” She turns off her pager and looks at him apologetic. “I gotta go in.”

He nods, trying to slow down his breathing. His eyes fall on the glistening mess on her inner thighs and—he has to look away. And grip the sheets. 

“I’ll drive you.”

“Oh no, I can just—”

“It’s pouring rain, and the streets are horrible.” He sits up and caresses her hip with his thumb. “Go shower.”

She gives him a quick half-smile and slips into the bathroom. He finds a set of her scrubs in their closet, and brings them into the shower with a sports bra, a long-sleeved shirt, and some clean panties. If he smells them before setting them on the bathroom countertop, because for some inexplicable blessing the laundry detergent never quite manages to wipe away the smell of her slick, Rey doesn’t need to know.

His heart is still pounding when he starts looking for his own scrubs. He can see a green corner peeking out from the spot on the dresser where Audrey is curled; a small, furry black ball purring herself to sleep.  She stretches her paws gracefully when he comes to stand beside her. 

“Move, please.”

Audrey lifts her head and blinks at him slowly. 

“Move,” he repeats, with a little more push. It’d be enough to make the bravest of his residents scurry away. Audrey just curls into a tighter circle, and goes back to sleep with a chirping sound.

With the corner of his eye Ben catches sight of Rian, sprawled out over the grey Henley he was wearing yesterday. He pinches his nose, thinking that now—on top of _this_ , Rey wants to get a damn _dog_.

“Fucking A,” he mutters, and walks into the closet to get himself fresh clothes.

 

…

 

The email saying that their application has been approved arrives while they are en route to the hospital.

“This is going to be _amazing_.” He can feel Rey's excitement flowing through the bond between them, can touch it in the bouncing of her knee under his hand. “She’ll fit right in. They’ll be an inseparable trio.” Ben privately thinks that the cats and the dog are going to make ground meat out of each other, but he’s not about to point it out and burst his mate’s bubble. And he’s been wrong a lot, before. He’s been so wrong, so often, about so much. “Rian, Audrey, and Leia. The dream girls.”

He scowls. “Wait. We’re gonna change the dog’s name, right?”

“No. No, why would we?”

“Because.” _Leia Corgana, Rey? Really?_ “Because—because that dog is named exactly like my mother. Minus a single letter.”

“Oh, she _loves_ it,” Rey beams. “I already texted her a pic.”

Ben tries not to think too hard about the fact that his Omega and his mother—with whom he had an only-recently-resolved, fifteen-year-long falling out—seem to text on a daily basis, and just closes his hand around Rey’s when she looks at him, smiling. 

He waits until she’s waving at him through the car window to let out a sigh.

 

…

 

The second the dog— _“Ben, just give in and call her Leia.”_ —trots inside their living room, Rian growls, and hisses, and meows in a spine-chilling way that has Ben convinced that they’ll certainly find corgi entrails scattered on the bathroom floor twenty minutes from now.

And then—then something odd and a little absurd happens: Leia just stands there, smiling with her tongue dangling out like a fat, shiny, pink ribbon, and Audrey walks up to her and... head-butts her on one of her stubby little legs. And then on the belly. And then Leia flops on her back in an oddly endearing display and Audrey curls up with her and is it _purring_ that Ben is overhearing and—

No. Nope. This is not how this whole clusterfuck was supposed to unfold.

Clearly feeling left out, Rian walks closer and licks Leia’s neck, looking only mildly disgruntled. 

There’s a heap of fur in Ben’s living room. A damn heap. Of _fur_. And it’s alive.

Rey turns to him and—he thinks her eyes might be a little bright. “Well. I guess Leia’s staying!”

Ben nods. Try as he might, he can’t manage to hate this as much he’d like.

 

…

 

The slice of toast is almost completely slathered in peanut butter when he feels a pricking sensation on the back of his head. He turns around and Leia is there, staring at him with a happy expression.

No. No, she’s not staring at _him_. Her eyes are on the peanut butter sandwich in his hand.

“Oh. This is for Rey,” Ben says. “I’m bringing it up to her. She was at the hospital late last night and I’m not sure she had dinner, so—” He stops himself when he realizes he’s explaining himself to a dog.

A dog who happens to be named after his mother.

Ben’s eyes narrow. “I fed you this morning. There, in the usual place.” They both turn to look at Leia’s bowl, which is… yeah. Gloomily empty, now. He thinks the dog lets out a soft whimper.

“Well,” he says, trying to sound reasonable. “There’s no way you can be hungry, then.”

Her tongue is basically lolling to the floor now, and she trips happily closer to Ben. She is still fixated on his hand. On its contents.

“This is not a good idea.”

Leia’s head tilts at ninety degrees.

“It’s for Rey.” 

Her ears twitch.

“Who might be hungry.”

A patient, black-rimmed blink. This stupid dog is _annoyingly_ cute.

Ben rolls his eyes. And then, hating himself a little, deposits the sandwich on the floor and slides two more slices in the toaster.

 

…

 

He feels something land on the couch, and turns his attention to his left, away from American Pickers. 

“Hey, princess.” Rey lifts her head from Ben's shoulder to smile at Leia, who stares back adoringly. “You having a nice evening?”

Leia makes a happy sound in the back of her throat and settles comfortably on the cushion.

“I thought we’d said no dogs on the couch,” Ben mutters, giving Leia a pointed look.

“Oh, had we?” Rey leans back against him, and drags her nose on his gland before turning to the TV. If she thinks she is doing a good job of hiding her smile, she is sorely mistaken. “I forgot.”

“Mmm.”

“This is a good episode. I love the Appalachian Mountains.”

Leia must like them too, because she leans her muzzle on Ben’s thigh and stares at the TV with sleepy eyes.

It’s not even his fault, if halfway through the show he begins to pet her.

 

…

 

Rey is...

So. _Wet_.

And...

So. Splendidly. _Tight_.

And everything else, too.

The first time he’d smelled her, Ben had felt his mind bend, flex forever in a new shape. Then he’d scented her in heat, and that had been _it_. And then—then, during the first heat after she’d taken his bite, he’d realized that he could _drown_ in her. That he gladly would.

Every heat since has been... a problem. Eclipsing, really—eclipsing all else. Almost impossible now, to control himself and not just _take_. 

She is saying, “Alpha, Alpha,” and begging him for something he’d tear worlds apart to give her, and his knot is _so_ swollen inside her that he cannot quite believe it, that she managed to take him in, and—

“Woof.”

Ben grunts.

And Rey moans, but she’s also—laughing.

He pulls back to look at her and—maybe, just maybe, if she had been a little less beautiful he’d have stood a chance. Maybe.

“Rey. This is— _ah_.” She is still fluttering around him. “Supremely unfunny.”

Rey laughs harder. “When did we last let her out?”

Ben has no idea. Tracking time and fucking his Omega are two things that don’t go well together on a good day, and during her heat… yeah. No.

“I think we need to…” Rey’s voice is breathy and raspy and Ben nods. “As soon as we… you know.”

It’s at least thirty minutes before Ben can pad his way downstairs to open the back door and let Leia out. 

“Go on, you beast.” He wishes he could keep the fondness out of his voice. And he wishes this stupidly, _aggressively_ adorable dog wasn’t staring at him with pleading eyes, begging him to go play with her a bit. They have this fetching routine, now. Rey has taken a video of it and uploaded it on her Instagram, or whatever that thing’s called, with a caption that was just a single red heart emoji, and people at work must have seen it. Ben knows, because they’ve _approached_ him. To comment on it. 

Bah.

“It’s a weird couple of days,” he explains, leaning against the doorframe. He probably should have put on some underwear. “But we’ll go for a long hike next weekend. Deal?”

Leia wags her tail and barks once, short and confident, before sauntering into the yard.

Ben most definitely does not smile as he hurries back to his mate.

 

…

 

He tells her that Chanukah cards are not really his thing. Repeatedly. Rey just smiles and kisses the pout off his mouth.

“Not _cards_. Card. Just one. For your mom.”

It’s a picture of the five of them, one in which Ben is frowning slightly less than usual. It says:

 

**Love and Light and Latkes.**

**Happy Hanukkah from Rian, Audrey, Leia Corgana, Rey & Ben.**

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks a billion to [LoveofEscapism](https://twitter.com/LEscapism?lang=en) for beta reading and for her help with the ending, and to [meg_sailorscout ](https://twitter.com/meg_sailorscout?lang=en) for making the prettiest moodboard ever and for being the best corgi mama out there 😻😻
> 
> You can find the moodboard [here! 💕🐶](https://twitter.com/EverSoReylo/status/1099513058458771457)
> 
> ETA: Buiana has made [an edit for the Hanukkah card and it's the most perfect thing to ever exist 😭💕🐶😻](https://twitter.com/buian_a/status/1134965960601944070)


End file.
